1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to telecommunications and, in particular, to voice identification. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to providing account usage fraud protection.
2. Description of the Related Art
Credit card systems often track the locations of where credit cards are utilized, such that if a credit card number is utilized more than often, or at locations geographically incoherent, the card owner is contacted to insure that the charges are valid. Store fronts typically require a customer to produce an actual credit card, however, when ordering products via the telephone or through Internet shopping, a person may be sitting in Austin, Tex. and make purchases within a single hour across the globe with just a credit card number and expiration date. Stealing a physical credit card today is not as advantageous as just stealing the credit card account information.
To add protection against fraud, some credit card companies require customers to call and verify a purchase before the charge to a credit card account is allowed. For example, a credit card company may require customers to call and verify charges for purchases made via the Internet. However, a call verification only requires the caller to provide an account number and password, such as the card holder's mother's maiden name. With the amount of personal information easily accessible via the Internet, the information needed to verify an account charge may easily be obtained by someone committing fraud.
While credit card accounts are easy to commit fraud with because only a card number and expiration date are needed, other types of accounts may also be accessed by unauthorized persons. For example, an individual may establish a stock account accessible via the Internet with a user name and password. The server providing the stock account does not typically provide any fraud protection other than not releasing a “forgotten password” unless certain personal information is provided.
Therefore, in view of the foregoing, it would be advantageous to provide a method, system, and program for reducing the risk of fraud for account usage. In particular, it would be advantageous to provide a method, system, and program for tracking the location, devices utilized, and other context information about an individual so that suspicious charges may be determined and sent to the individual for authentication.